Patagonia Debuts New Short Film on Fair Trade Apparel
Fair Trade: The First Step
You may be familiar with the “Fair Trade Certified” symbol and its assurance that some of the money spent on a bag of coffee or bar of chocolate goes directly to its producers and stays in their community. Patagonia, in partnership with Fair Trade USA, now makes clothes that provide the same benefit.
The program is simple: For every Fair Trade Certified™ item we have sewn, Patagonia pays a premium. The money goes into an account the workers control. This is not a top-down program but one run in each case by a democratically elected Fair Trade worker committee that decides how the funds will be used, whether designated for social, economic and environmental community projects like private health care or a child care center, or as a cash bonus that gets workers directly closer to a living wage.
